


Mother's Day

by redheadgirl



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Padres team bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 00:43:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadgirl/pseuds/redheadgirl
Summary: Ginny's response to MLB's request for a short clip about her mother.





	Mother's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ginny tells it like it is](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9850547) by [redheadgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redheadgirl/pseuds/redheadgirl). 



> This is set in Spring Training at the beginning of her second season in the majors. Every year MLB has players give a 30-60 second soundbite about their mom in honor of Mother's Day. This is what I would imagine Ginny's response would be.
> 
> This is a previously posted chapter in Ginny Tells It Like It Is. It was suggested I make it a separate story, and I bow to that person's substantial experience.

To say Ginny's relationship with her mother was complex would be quite an understatement. There were undercurrents of so many emotions in their relationship it was astounding one of them hadn't drowned. So it was an unwelcome surprise when an MLB public relations official showed up to Spring Training and shoved a microphone into her face with no warning. Behind him was a cameraman, his camera already on his shoulder and ready to record.

"Tell me about your mother," the official prompted.

Ginny blinked in surprise. "Who are you?"

 The man sighed.  "I’m betting they didn’t tell you I’d be coming. I'm Terrell Green, the director of public relations for Major League Baseball. Every mother's day we do clips of different players talking about the role their mothers played in their life. It doesn't have to be long, just a quick story and a comment about how much she means to you."

“I’d prefer not to,” Ginny told him.

Terrell gave her a tight smile. “I understand, but the commissioner really wants to hear from you. You offer a unique perspective.”

Ginny crossed her arms. “Why? Because I’m the only one with a mother?”

Terrell held his smile, but the cameraman shuffled uncomfortably. “No…”

Ginny nodded her head. “Is it because I’m the only one in MLB with ovaries?”

Both men choked on air. “Ginny, that’s not true.”

“So I’m not the only one in MLB with ovaries?” Perversely, Ginny was beginning to enjoy herself.

That brought out a bark of laughter from the cameraman, but Terrell looked like he was gritting his teeth. “No, it’s not only because you have ovaries.”

“So then why do I have to do it?”

Mike came up behind her. They had just finished a bullpen session, and Mike had stayed behind to talk over her rehab with the pitching and training staffs. “What’s going on?”

Terrell’s eyes widened and he grinned. “Mike Lawson! This is great. I’ll have you give your blip about your mother for Mother’s Day and then Ginny can follow after you.”

“No.”

Mike’s voice was hard. Ginny glanced over her shoulder and saw a face of granite. His expression gave away nothing, but his eyes had the same intensity she saw from behind the plate when she was pitching.

Terrell blinked several times at the terse response. “Mike, this is for Mother’s…” he began again.

“I said no.”

It wasn’t like Mike to be so openly rude, especially to someone from MLB. Ginny didn’t know what was going on with Mike, but it was obvious to her that he was upset.

She stepped in front of Mike, turning Terrell’s attention back to her. “So what do you need me to do?”

Terrell quickly turned back to Ginny, happy to ignore Mike now that he had her cooperation. “We’ll only show a one minute clip, so something short and sweet that is representative of your relationship is what we’re looking for.”

It felt like all the muscles in her body tensed. There was nothing short and sweet about her strained relationship with her mother. At this moment she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather talk less about. Then she felt Mike’s had softly rest on her lower back, almost like he was trying to reassure her. That couldn’t be though, because Mike wasn’t much of a reassuring type of guy.

“Listen Terrell, Baker has to get back to the training room and ice her arm down. I’m not going to risk her developing inflammation over some commercial.” Mike raised his voice to talk over Terrell’s objection. “She’ll meet you in the pressroom in an hour.”

Terrell reluctantly stepped out of her way and she walked past him on her way to the training facilities. Mike kept pace beside her but said nothing, at least out loud. The look he sent her was enough for her to know what he was thinking. He didn’t need her to protect him from the press, but he was reluctantly grateful that she did.

She waited until they were in the trainers’ room alone, her right arm swaddled in ice bags, before she gave in and broke their silence.

“Shouldn’t you be sitting in the ice bath old man?”

Mike was lying face down on a training table, his knees wrapped in ice while a wet heat pack was on his lower back. He didn’t open his eyes when grunted at her. “I don’t need it yet. Besides, it’s too early in the season to shrivel the boys. I have a lot to do before I get to that point.”

Ginny gave a surprised bark of laughter. “Aren’t they shriveled already? I thought it was normal for a guy your age.”

He cracked one eye open to look at her. “Nice try, Baker.”

“What,” she asked innocently. “To hear Livan tell it...” she let her sentence trail off expectantly.

He opened both eyes at that. “You’ve been talking about my boys with Livan?”

That tripped her up. “No, not exactly.”

He smiled then, a true grin that lit up his eyes. “Oh no, you have to tell me what you and Livan have been talking about.”

She fidgeted with her ice packs, wishing she had never brought it up. “Never mind.”

She abruptly jumped off the table, but instead of leaving the training room like Mike obviously expected she shoved her training table closer to Mike’s. She climbed back on her table and laid down, her face turned towards Mike’s. She didn’t want anyone to overhear their conversation. Her private life was no one’s business. But for some reason, she was willing to trust Mike with her dysfunctional family stories. After all, he had enjoyed a front row seat to several of them.

“Why don’t you talk about your family,” she asked softly.

Mike closed his eyes again. “For the same reason you don’t.”

She snorted. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“You think you’re the only one with family issues?”

“No,” she said softly. “I think a lot of people have issues, just different than mine.”

Ginny waited but after a couple of minutes it was obvious he wasn’t going to respond. She pushed down her irritation that he wouldn’t open up to her when he knew enough about her family to understand her reluctance to discuss them.

“I don’t want to do it,” she quietly confessed.

Mike opened an eye. “Then don’t.”

She turned her face to the ceiling. “You know I have to. I can’t tell the commissioner of MLB no.”

“So what are you going to say,” Mike asked softly.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I don’t want to lie but I don’t want people to view my mother poorly. She is a good person over all.” A heavy weight settled in her chest as she thought about their last meeting and the awkwardness of it all.

“Then think of something good from your childhood. A funny story, or a time she stood up for you. Maybe a girls’ day trip you took. As adults you may struggle, but there must have been some positive moments or you would be so upset about your struggles now.”

Ginny stared at her captain, surprised at his insight. “You’re getting wise in your old age, Lawson.”

“I know everything, rookie. It has nothing to do with age.”

She let that crack go as her mind whirled to process what he said. She listened as his breath settled into something slower and deeper as he drifted off to sleep. He was right. She did have good memories with her mother that had been overshadowed in her resentment over the affair. And the more she thought about it, the more she felt the chasm that had grown between them.

The timer signaling the end of her icing startled her. She peeled back the plastic wrap holding her ice packs to her arm and sat up, slowly bending and flexing her elbow to feel for any stiffness that might indicate swelling. She breathed a sigh of relief when her range of motion remained normal. She had come too far in her recovery to risk setbacks now.

She looked at Mike and couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. He hadn’t stirred with the alarm and this was a rare chance for her to see him completely relaxed. He looked less hardened with his face relaxed in sleep, the constant furrow of his brow and sarcastic twist to his mouth gone. His lips were slightly parted and his one side of his face resting against the table gave the observable side a chipmunk cheek.

She quietly removed the heating pack from his back and carefully cut the wrap holding the ice packs to his knees. Then, because she was a weak woman who couldn’t resist teasing her captain, she softly pinched his chipmunk cheek. His eyes snapped open and he lifted his head to look around. His eyes met her and, sure enough, the furrows between his brows were back.

“Did you really just pinch my cheek?”

Ginny smiled cockily at him. “Relax, it was only your face cheek.”

Mike rested his forehead on the table and laughed. “You’re gonna be the death of me, rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie, Lawson.”

She thought she saw his cheeks pull back, indicating a smile that was hidden by the table. “Baker, you have a long way to go before you’re not a rookie.”

To her internal chagrin, Ginny couldn’t stop her eye roll. She was around Mike way too much if she was picking up his bad habits.

She slapped the side of his leg to get his attention. “Come on Lawson, I have a great idea.”

Mike pushed off the table with a groan. He stood up and stretched, ignoring the pops and cracks from his back. “I hate your great ideas.”

Ginny’s mouth dropped open. “Why would you hate my ideas?”

“Because 70% of your great ideas require my assistance or energy in some way and another 29% involve at least one of the other guys.”

Ginny rocked side to side on her feet, not saying anything. Okay, so maybe she did have a lot of ideas that involved her team, but they always worked out well for everyone. Well, almost always. Still, the guys usually went along with them, most of the time voluntarily.

At her continued silence Mike cocked an eyebrow at her. It nearly killed her to admit he was right, but she finally conceded. “Fine. I need your help.”

Lord, she hated that know-it-all smirk he gave her when he thought he had her all figured out. “Of course you need my help, Baker.”

“It’s not attractive to gloat,” she warned.

“Baker, I’m attractive no matter what I do.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Are you denying that you find me attractive?”

She just scowled at him in silence, knowing that he wouldn’t believe whatever she said.

A shit-eating grin split his face. “That’s what I thought.”

“Don’t get too cocky Lawson. There are plenty of guys, including baseball players, that are attractive.”

The smile on his face quickly became a scowl. “Who else do you find attractive? It better not be someone on this team.” He paused, stricken by a terrible thought. “It’s not Livan, is it? Tell me it’s not him. Or Omar. And it better not be anyone in the bullpen because those guys are nuts.”

“Mike,” Ginny snapped, breaking into his rant. Her mood lightened substantially now that his was dark. “It’s no one on the team. For God’s sake, I know too much about all of you to be attracted to you weirdos.”

As she left the room, she heard him mutter something that sounded like, “I’m not a weirdo.”

 

*********************************************************************

 

An hour later Ginny led a small procession into the pressroom. Terrell looked up from his notes in surprise. “What is this?”

“Well Mr. Green, I was thinking that there are many family situations and they should be represented in the promos. Just because someone isn’t a biological mother doesn’t mean that they aren’t a great, influential mother to their child. So we’ve all agreed to put in a clip for MLB to use.” Granted, _agreed_ might be a bit of a stretch, but _resigned to_ sounded so..blackmail-ish.

In short order, Javanes had given a clip about being raised by his grandmother and Hinkley told about being raised by a step-mother who was more of a mother than anyone could ever have. And then it was her turn.

She had expected the guys to leave, but Javanes, Hinkley, and Lawson leaned against the wall watching as she settled in the chair to take her turn in front of the camera.

“Ginny, tell us about how your mother is special to you,” Terrell prompted.

“My mom was, and is, the person that keeps me grounded. When I was younger, she insisted that I be allowed to do things outside of baseball. My father would have kept me on the mound all day, every day, if allowed and I wanted that, too. But my mom made sure I had a life outside of baseball. One time, she took me out of school and we drove into Raleigh, just so we could have a day together. We watched a movie, went shopping, ate ice cream for lunch, and just had a lot of fun. And even though I had been told I couldn’t until I was 12, she let me get my ears pierced that day.” Ginny paused to smile sheepishly at the camera. “I still have those earrings. I think I laughed more than day than I ever have.”

Ginny’s expression sobered as she looked in the camera. “It couldn’t have been easy for her. So much of my time revolved around baseball, so hers’ did, too. She spent a lot of time driving me to practices, games, and tournaments and sitting in the stands cheering me on when I was playing. I know she caught a lot of flak from people, especially other parents, for letting her daughter play a “man’s game”.  I can remember one incident where a parent in the stands was yelling insulting things at me, and when my mom told him to stop he turned on her and accused her of being abusive to me because she let me “act like a boy” and how she was a terrible person who “raised a freak”. My mother looked at him in her calm way and without ever raising her voice, she shut him up and by the end of the game not only had he apologized to her, he apologized to my teammates and then me. To my ten-year-old self, she was a superhero that day.”

There was a beat of silence as the men in the room processed what she had said. In her periphery vision, she could see Javanes and Hinkley exchange glances and Mike had his arms crossed as he stared at her.

“So what would you say to your mom now,” Terrell asked.

Ginny gave the camera a faint smile. “I guess I’d say how thankful I am that she was always there for me, ready to fight to protect me if necessary but also helping me learn to protect myself. And that I love her.”

****************************************************************

After the interview was over, the four players walked back to the clubhouse to change and grab a quick lunch before afternoon practice. Hinkley tapped the bill of her hat and Javanes gave her a pat on the back as they separated at the clubhouse, the two going to the main room to change and Ginny turning towards her cubby. She could feel Mike at her back, silently following her down the hallway to her door.

“What,” she finally demanded as she entered the room. She turned to face him and was surprised to find him only a step away from her. He never came all the way into her changing room here, probably because there was barely enough room for two people to stand in the tiny space.

“You did really well,” he said.

“Thanks.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes focused over her shoulder. His lips parted, but no words came out.

“Mike?”

“My family situation isn’t so good,” he sighed.

“I guessed that,” Ginny told him, keeping her voice soft to encourage him to talk more.

Mike chuffed out a breath before dropping his hand and meeting her eyes. “Want to meet at my place tonight? We can get some food and relax away from these guys.”

Ginny knew Mike Lawson well enough to know that he was offering more than free pizza and a screening of whatever baseball movie he chose for the night. He was offering her the chance to ask him questions about his family that he _might_ answer.

“Let me know what time.”

He gave her an abrupt nod and left the room without another word.

“Hey! Good bye to you, too,” she called after him.

He stuck his head back in the room. “Don’t forget that I hate pineapple on my pizza. And get two extra-larges this time. You ate both large pizzas last time and I only got crumbs.”

 

************************************************************************

 

“Did you see the clip,” Ginny asked hesitantly.

“Yes, I did,” Janet responded. Ginny could hear the smile in her mother’s voice. “It was wonderful.”

Ginny silently sighed in relief. “I wasn’t sure if you would want me to say anything, especially about that one incident in the stands.”

Janet tsked. “Guinevere Rose Baker, you just gave me the best mother’s day present ever. Don’t ruin it by second guessing it.”

Ginny flinched a bit at her full name. Her mom meant business if she pulled out the full name card. “Happy Mother’s Day. I love you, Mom.”

Ginny heard a sniff that might, or might not, mean her mom was crying. “I love you too, Ginnybean.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are the only way I know for sure that someone is reading my story. And, you know, they make me feel loved. I'm needy like that.


End file.
